abroad.

Thursday, April 27, 2017

Recently I came across an article written by Melissa Moeller, who writes about modern dating. I find this article so inspiring that I decided to share my thoughts about it. After showing it to my friends we all agreed with the below small essay, but then we also all agreed that there is nothing to be done about it (as you have to play it cool). Insta, snap, tinder, fb xxxx

As a almost 23 grown up teenager hihi I am pretty much aware of the modern hook up culture. This art of getting the right guy to the bar, crafting the perfect response to a text to make you seem just interested enough but not a despo. why is it all like this? why did everything become fake and boring? is it because of insignificant events in my mind or is it because I react too sensitively to the people with whom I share the world? or maybe the modern dating is just fucked up and lets focus on this part.

tbh I do not really believe in genuine dating anymore. People ask you to HANG OUT and you do so. but then you spend next three days wondering and ignoring, as you are suppose to do. it does not matter what you did, whether it was a movie or sex in a car or you went for a city trip- careful cause you were just hanging out and it was casual, right? Don't bother and think what he/she is thinking or what that evening meant to him/her. why not? because you can not ask, it is not cool.

I see that we live in the world where people are afraid to feel and show feelings or emotions. they are too scared to show anything genuine. when someone is angry with you, there is no phone call but huge essay on WhatsApp. it is easier to send a passive aggressive text, you can avoid showing your feelings. If you like someone, you don't tell them how you feel, rather act interested enough for them to pick up on it but not enough to freak them out. if you don't play by the rules then you lose. so be careful.

Moreover, do not ask to hangout two nights in a row. if you texted first last time, you have to wait for him/her to text you first. and important: don't double text !!! so yeah, everything is done through texting as it is weird to call someone in the modern world just to have conversation or try to make plans. we are forced to wait for a response that might not ever come

Everything is calculated to appear thoughtless and do not forget not to care too much. For me it is quite difficult to play it, I guess I will faster graduate and pass my finance exam than understand the reason behind modern dating world.

Another thing is when I like someone. when I like someone I wanna hang out with him and its simple as that, or at least should be. But in this dating culture it is different, as I talk to him too much, I'm needy. if I'm always free when he asks me to hang out, I'm clingy. if he takes 3 hours to respond my text, then I have to multiply the hours waiting, to the power of 2 and then I can text back.

but then I am wondering, why am I playing this stupid game? why can we call people because we like talking to them, why does showing I care make me needy and despo? I am not this girl and I believe you are also tired of this internet shit. you're tired of this app world.

lets post Insta together, crop this shit out and show the world how fun people we are.

but even though we admit it now, online, we will keep acting like the above described behaviours.

But still remember, you cannot define any relationship because everything is just a casual thing.

But here's actually Melissa's idea : " let's stop being little fucks. respect other people enough to tell them the truth. if someone makes you happy-tell them. if someone inspires you-tell them. if you're not interested anymore- please stop this fucking game and tell them. don't ignore people until they disappear. its time we grow up and stop leaving people hanging with unanswered texts and cryptic social media posts. everyone is human and we are all just trying to understand one another in this messy world"

Then now my personal advice, be yourself and follow your intuition, dont play with people because karma is a bitch. remember, that some people will only love you as much as they can use you. their friendship ends where the benefit stops. remember when 'thank you' was enough? remember when ' I want you' was enough?

Thursday, March 2, 2017

So I was thinking and
thinking about the next post, which is the first one after my trip to Colombia,
on which I took my best friend with me. It was again very short one as I spent
only 10 days in the country. We traveled between Bogota-Cartagena and Cucuta. I
could say that this trip was different; I can truly admit that after this one I
am even more connected by heart and do not really feel the distance anymore.
You all know how in love I am with Colombia and how happy I am when I am there,
it is noticeable on every social media post so no need to write about it.
However during this stay I felt like I never left, each year I am coming back
and forth. Skyping, whatsapping and calling and… missing. Missing it hard and
everyday.

When I was leaving Colombia
I was not sad, as I knew that I am back in May, for 5 days only but still. But
as a 23 year old girl, who gets older and more mature I felt connected like
never before, I came to the realization that I need to get there even more by
doing my internship or set my first business there.

I feel more, as nothing
changed in my relationships with people I love. I am always afraid that one day
I might lose it. I felt more connected as I felt like home. But the question
is; how many homes can you have? They say that home is where your house is, but
now the building means nothing for me. They say that home is where the heart
is, but then it means that my heart has to be divided by 3.

Today I spent my day in a
city (where my parents currently live) but this city has a sentimental meaning
for me, as my first time here was 7 years ago, just before I left to Colombia.
In this city I met other people, in my age or bit older who also decided to
leave everything in a such young age and explore the world, move to another
continent and challenge yourself. With some of them I am still in touch, others
I follow on social media… either way I can see how successful these people are
and how this challenge changed our life.

It is beginning of March,
for some of you it means that your exchange is nearly done.You spent almost ¾ of the year abroad and
probably you cannot imagine coming back home. As I said before, living in another country or
switching countries every few years, change your life forever. You will never
be the same and will never see things the same way you did before leaving. I
remember how depressed I was when I had to come to Poland from Colombia. No one
understood me as no one around had the experience like me. Yet, for those of us
who have lived abroad, this is simply the way it is. I remember when I came
back and I experienced ‘ reversed culture shock’, which is returning to the
place you have lived before you left somewhere else.

I don’t think that there is
really any way to describe this feeling and trust me that things will never be
the same.I know that in this period of
time many people wonder whether they should spend year/ summer abroad. Whether
they should accept internships, which are far away from the comfort zone(home).
I know this is very hard. The hardest part is that you are scared that when you
come back, things will not remain the same. But… THEY WILL. You will change,
not your friends, parents, boyfriends. You may leave for a year and trust me,
nothing will change within the city you live but relationship will, for better.
Real people will always love you, no matter what and where you are. If you are
connected and have this ’spark’ then you both should take care of it. I think
that at this point it is also valuable to find out who is real, right?

I promise that you will
never want the clocks to be turned back and you will never want to be the
person you were before leaving..

As I mentioned before, I am
helping many students, parents and other people to take this decision of
spending year abroad. I exchange emails mostly with Rotary parents, who are
afraid of their children but also advising people, who are scared to get out of
their comfort zone. But what I am trying to say and with this sentence I will
close this post…

Sometimes it is a struggle
to be present in moment, when you want to celebrate the beauty of where you
are, rather than long for what you have left behind. But now, for me, home is
wherever I find my homies, who I have in Colombia, Amsterdam and in Poland. It
is messed up and sometimes it is very hard but I cannot imagine that I live the
life, which I lived 7 years ago. And the thing is… we all feel the same. By the
end of the day, we all want be around warm hearted and good people. It takes
both sides to build the bridge, doesn’t it?

PS. GO ! as far as possible, to the weirdest place you can even imagine.

Questions? You know how to
reach me ( as I cannot say where to find me jaja)

Monday, December 26, 2016

It has been a while since the last post, however when
realizing that New Year is coming just in 5 days, I could not let it go without
any New Year’s post.I know I am not a
regular here but it is important to write something from time to time. Not only
to write my thoughts down but also to make you read something obvious, which
you keep forgetting all the time.

New Year, new expectations, new short or long goals. Time
for changes, for forgiveness, for an overall change, for better.But where shall we start? Shall we set the
big goals all again and say that this time I will make it happenF O
RS U R E ? like, I will finally
lose weight, finally do more good, finally stop being selfish, finally care
more about others…you name it. We create these big long-term goals in order to
change and feel better with ourselves. But I just thought of setting new goals,
which are divided into small steps. They say that there is no lift to success
that you have to take stairs. Then why don’t we take those?

Little example,

I will lose 20 kg during 2017.Sounds achievable right? But you also said
that three years ago. So, lets maybe change it into “ I will lose 3kg monthly
during 2017 ? Means… you will be more motivated by setting small goals and
achieve one big faster?

I will stop being that selfish, spoilt person during 2017.
Changing into: I will call my family from once to twice per week, I will ask
others how they really are instead of treating them as your emotional trash?

In school I learned that the goals we set they have to be
SMART. Specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, time-bound.Doesn’t it sound better and more achievable
than one long-term goal with a further excuse ‘ actually 2017 is long enough to
start next month, instead of now? ‘

Why do not we all
agree that we will be better people for each other?Very simple but I think each of us could
think of becoming better person and get rid of bad habits.

Oh, and what happened to our everyday bullshit and games?
Shall we maybe start from this?Overthinking,
analyzing instead of going with the flow and let it go?I saw a good picture last time, somewhere on
Instagram. A hand is holding very tight that rope. Next this hand becomes very
red as keeping that rope causes a lot of
pain. Then saying appears ‘ sometimes its less painful to just let it go”

Another one, we are expected to ‘act smart’ and
‘interesting’ but not too interesting because we’ve got to leave a little to
other people imagination.

From this spot I say
hi to best friends J and L.

I placed some time
ago this article about modern dating 2016, it is really interesting to if
you’re curious, just scroll down and you’ll find it.

What about people we meet, who we like? We have to be
constantly ‘busy’ or ‘out of reach’. We have a certain amount of time we have
to wait before even thinking about replying to their message. But are we even
allowed to use emoji’s? We start to become this person that we aren’t. We are now
pretending to like what they like because we feel that will make them fall for
us more. It will make us seem more attractive. Every. Single. Word has to be properly analyzed and your best
friend(s) need to proof read before pressing send.

On the other hand, you can run after person, who does not
run after you. So maybe let’s stop this game and just focus more on people who
care, instead of running for others stupid and sick attention? Wearing our
heart on sleeve isn’t easy. Being let down and mentally neglected is tough to
bounce back from. But now this is time and we are all old enough to have this
power and leave all shit behind us. Why? Just because it’s almost 2017 and this
reason is good enough.

So please. You have next 5 days to define, who you were the
last 365 days and if you like this person. If so, congratulations, you became a
better one out of X number of world’s population. If not, then you also have 5
days to define, who you want to be for the next 365 days or for more. If you
did so, start now.

31st of December 2016, 11.45 pm

Please prepare 12 grapes, which symbolize 12 different
wishes for the next year and with each minute eat one. With this, make all your
new wishes, dreams and even new you come true. *

*My Colombian fam
taught me this, I believe this is a perfect symbol of starting new year and new
you.

And now,

May all your wishes come true, be healthy, wealthy and be
good. Respect others and treat them not how you want to be treated but how they want to be, as everybody is
different.

Saturday, October 29, 2016

My soul has tendency of overanalyzing and overthinking of
everything and everyone I pass. Very often I am focused on unkind comments from
strangers, on friends who disappointed me, on people who do not care, on things
I could have done better or on a future, which may bring many consequences
based on my current behavior.Then, like
today, I am asking myself what can happen if my soul can love everything I do.
What will happen if I could love people I am used to dislike or people who hurt
before ? What will happen if I could just see good in people and try to get the
best out of them? In every minute of your life you could have your special
zoom+ mirror, which will search only for positive aspects of people’ behavior…
What would you do with it? Imagine you see only good in your boss, your
colleague, team member, your neighbor, who puts loud music on Sunday evening.
Imagine you see only good in your partner, in your roommate, in your annoying
younger or older sibling…imagine you see only good in your illness or when you
are fired or… in a pregnancy test, which gave you the result you didn’t expect.
What will happen if you would see only good in every aspect of your life, which
seem dead.. like the job you hate, the relationship you want to get out from, the
exam, which you still can not pass after the 3rd time… What will you
do if you will finally understand that all you do, how you think, what you give…
only depend on you? You need to decide how you want to think and if you are
happy with it. We all do everything the same. We all work, worry, love, want to
have great holidays and great people around. The difference is H O W we do it.

No one is actually listening to the cabin crew who always
say the same thing

“ Put on your own oxygen mask before helping those around
you “.

For me this sentence has a deeper meaning as if you don’t
help yourself first, you cannot save anyone around you. The same applies to
real life situations. How would you like to help others, in any matter, if you
do not take care of yourself? Can it happen that you are always available for
everyone, on call ? You are always available to help others, before you
actually think of yourself. I am not an exception. I always try to help other
in studying, finding jobs, taking people out, talking, solving some real problems.
Sometimes I do these things and cancel my own plans as I find my friends more
important than myself. But I bet that I am not the only one. How can you see
good in others if you do not take care of yourself? How can you help others if
you are exhausted and get annoyed by everything, which surrounds you. ( True that
all women have their PMS but I really do not want to compare these days to
others J ) How can you change it? What should you do in
order to put on your own oxygen mask before helping those around you?

First, agree with yourself. Let it be an official allowance
to take care of yourself as you are the only one responsible for that, no one
else. After following a mindfulness course I allowed myself to create a list,
to which I will stick everyday, no matter how busy I am.

Oh, by the way, “ I am too busy” is not an excuse. For
literally nothing

1.Take care of myself – stop taking
responsibilities, which aren’t yours. Stop being so much for others that by the
end of the day you do not have any energy for yourself

2.Give yourself 5 minutes- take your 5 minutes to
chill, to relax and to breath when stress just took over your body. Reset. Sit
down. The more chilled you will be, the better decisions you will make. Trust
me, these 5 minutes without your phone, computer and your thoughts will make
you feel better and world will not disappear without you.

3.Take what is yours- don’t give anyone a remote
control to your feelings. Stop with excuses “ this guy makes me crazy”. Take
your remote and press “ chill”. You do not have any influence on what other
people do but you have an influence on what you do and how actually you think.

4.Create a list with things for what you are
grateful for- for example when you are stuck in traffic, look around and think how
lucky you are to be inside the car/bus when other people have to walk in rain

Try to imagine that you love yourself as much as all people
around you.

Monday, August 22, 2016

This night (as usually during nights), I was thinking
carefully about my thoughts and I came to the conclusion that I may repeat
myself from time to time. Please, forgive me if you ever noticed that but
sometimes I cant control my “powerful thoughts”. First I do not want to sound
as a crazy feminist, who I am not. Second, I have this need inside me to spread
more wisdom, so not to give life advices but open people eyes on things they are too
much attached to or they too scared to leave their past behind them. In the
last post I was writing about this ‘trend’ of(not) being in a relationship, but today I would like to add something
more to that.

Especially in the young age, in which I am now 22-30 years
old, people tend to settle down, finish their studies, find a perfect matching
job, start earning money in order to save for their future, which brings most
of the time family. We are born with an idea to complete this scheme and be
happy. But what happens, when we realize that after completing this scheme we
are not happy enough? What if we want something else from life? What if we have
different role to play in our life? I think everyone has this moment in the
middle of studies that we have to figure out what kind of internship we want to
do, where, how, now? What if we just would like to be extraordinary and do not
follow the crowd? I am not saying that ‘ following the crowd’ is a bad thing.
In my opinion, Following the crowd means that we do what is a ‘good thing’ to
do... like again, 1. Completing studies, find a good job, find a good husband
and have a family. Most of women just dream about it but I am not this kind of
person.

It seems like this summer was one of my pre-last student
summers in my life. That is why I was thinking what I will expect from the next
summer, last 2 months of dolce far niente in my life. Travel the world? Spend
some time with family? Volunteering?

I don’t know but for sure I will have to do something, which
I will remember till the rest of my life, like going to India to monastery and
a silent weeks.

Why did I bring up this summer example? Because this is the
best example of being pushed to do something “ extraordinary” in our lives..
Knowing, that it will be probably your last student summer, what would you do? Probably
half of you would say“ go to Ibiza and party all weeks long”, another half
would say “ I don’t have a plan and any willing to think what will happen in
one year”.

Nowadays, people follow the crowd, however they still think
that they do something extraordinary and they are unique. People still want to
believe in eternal happiness, which always includes money, as everyone wants to
get rich, have a family and just an amazing life. But the question now is,

A R EW ER E A D YF O RAC H A N G E ?

In order to change our life…?

With all that plans we make, do we realize that in order to
change something in our life, we have to get rid of the past? Or is the past
creating the future?

Again, coming back to my last post. People are very easily
attached to another person, which makes it almost impossible to leave, change
and forget. But why would we hang on someone, who does not appreciate us? Why
do we always need to relay on someone, in any terms( friendship, partnership) ?
Why cant we think that everything we do, all the choices we make are only
depend on us? I said before that we became very selfish and we stopped caring
about the other person, but.. why not in this topic? Why cant we leave the
past, face it and agree that we do not own anything anyone? That is okay to
leave and be by our own !? If we do not like it, we can just leave, close one
chapter in order to open a new one? Believe me, I know it hurts very much but
by only non stop trying we become the best of ourselves.

As talking about following the crowd, it always scary me
when I see unhappy couples, who are together because they share past, moments,
its too difficult to break such an ‘amazing’ relation and in older age-
children. But the question is, Who are you living for? You have one life, which
you have to use and try everything in order to not regret anything. Why would
you be so dependent on someone? Why can’t we create a better world by doing
good and share good with only the closest relatives and friends? Why is it so
hard for us to feel lonely for a bit? It is at the beginning, but then we
realize that it actually made us stronger.

I was wondering for the last 2 years, when I got out from
this teenage stage

“why don’t I have a bf ?” what is wrong with me?

Then during my internship I met a very old Polish friend
with who I went on a party. Of course alcohol sometimes does not help but in
this time, it actually broaden my mind. I asked him this question, tipsy, in a
party mood and I did not expect any real answer. Nevertheless we started to
talk and I will always remember what he said. Please, allow me to quote him

“ Natalia, when I see you, I see such a strong woman, such a
strong personality that I am not sure who is able to handle it(unconsciously). Hearing your life story from
the moment you introduce yourself, that you are a world citizen who has been
raised abroad. You left to Colombia by yourself when you were 15, when your
peers are probably having their first beer in their life but you were “fighting”
for life. To be honest, I am not sure who is able to handle that positivity and
confidence. But when I see you later, I talk to you, you are the most fragile
person I know”

After 10 months of digesting this conversation with my
friend I came to the conclusion that everyone has its own mission in life.Someone is born to make people happy by
selling ice creams, someone is born to be a CEO of a big company like Apple, so
I can now use my Mac to write this post, and other people, and I feel like I
belong to that group is born to open some people eyes on reality. I am not
writing anything you do not know, but I am writing something to remind you
about that, which you may forget in your busy life.